KENYA:OKash loans app hits over Sh10m daily transactions

OKash loan app by Opera Group subsidiary Opay has hit over Sh10 million transactions daily, barely two months after its launch.

The mobile phone-based loan app available on Google Play, the official app store for the Android system, was launched in March and currently has over 100,000 daily active users with total downloads of about 300,000.

Opera managing director Eddie Ndichu said this demonstrates demand for shorter-term loans in the market with incentive for earlier repayment.

“We know that there are more than 20 million people in Kenya who use loans actively every day and we want to give them a high-end product with an exceptional user experience to make their life more comfortable when applying for and making payments with loans,” said Mr Ndichu.

Users download OKash app and set up accounts using their M-Pesa accounts. By filling out a set of questions, users get a reply on their loan application.

A user can access a loan of as low as Sh1,500 up to Sh500,000 at an interest rate of one per cent daily, repayable within 14 days. The faster a user pays off an active loan, the sooner they can request a new loan.

Consumers with timely and consistent repayment behaviour can apply for a single loan up to Sh500,000 at five per cent.

To repay the loan, users just need to click the payment button and process it through the M-Pesa STK push service. The amount is debited directly from the user’s M-Pesa wallet.

Last year Standard Investment Bank (SIB) showed the number of households or persons with loan accounts increased to 7.2 million between 2010 and 2016 as banks and telcos leveraged on wide mobile phone usage.